Report from the inside of Orleans Parish Prison since its opening post Hurricane

This is a first hand report of a night spent in OPP, describing the conditions inside the jail (over flowing toilets, 9 to a 5 bed cell) and quotes the now constant threat being made by the court system in New Orleans : “if you plead guilty you leave today, you plead not guilty and you’ll be here ‘til February.”

October 9th: The numerous accounts of escalated police harassment and violence after Hurricane Katrina reported on NOLA Indymedia, many of them first reported here, (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) are getting unprecedented corroboration in the corporate media when an Associated Press TV camera caught the beating of a 64-year old man in the French Quarter Saturday, October 8th. After being ordered to stop filming, an officer attacked the AP producer accompanying the cameraperson. Some (but not all) officers involved have been suspended. Read the AP story and watch the tape here.

The NOPD has a long history of brutality and corruption, including the apparent theft of Cadillacs from a dealership as tens of thousands of residents were trapped without transportation, food, water or shelter in the wake of Katrina. Yet the AP reports that two of the five police that committed the assaults were federal officers, suggesting recent police violence in New Orleans cannot be explained as merely due to a corrupt departmental culture. This comes as information has surfaced that hundreds of National Guard troops (engineers) were in a separate part of the Convention Center throughout the horrendous ordeal of thousands there, but did not intervene.

After harassment last night by local sheriffs, residents of Louisburg Square apartments decided not to be intimidated, but instead to hold a press conference this morning to expose the dirty dealings of their landlord.

October 26th: Today George Bush reinstated the Davis-Bacon or "prevailing wage" law, requiring that contractors working for the government pay the prevailing wage in the region to their workers. The 1930's law had been waived shortly after Hurricane Katrina by an presidential order for the rebuilding of the areas affected by the hurricanes. AFL-CIO report Change to Win press release